We had our HVAC duct work checked and sealed yesterday. I could say we had it done in honor of Earth Day on Tuesday, April 22. But we didn't. It just worked out that way.
Let's go back about a month. We got a letter/solicitation in the mail from TU Electric. They were saying that we could have a company come out and test and seal the duct work in the house. All for FREE! Well this sounded too good to be true but my father-in-law insisted that I send it in. After all it was FREE! So I filled it out and sent it in and waited.
Then someone called and set up an appointment to come out on a Saturday. Crud! There goes a perfectly good Saturday. Saturday arrived and so did the technician around 10:00 AM. He introduced himself. Dan Coker is his name. he came in a explained the process. I showed him around the house and where the two HVAC units were inside and outside the house. Dan then proceeded to bring in his equipment and get right to work.
First he hooked up his "blower door" on the front door and turned it on and began checking for air loss. He took his measurements and did all of his technical stuff and then got done to the "dirty work". He took off each duct grate in the house and used sealer to seal up all the areas where the ducts had worked loose. he even showed me a duct in an add-on room that was very loose and losing a lot of air. Maybe that explains why the room was always hot in the summer and cold in the winter. He sealed it up and continued. After the ceiling ducts he moved to the inside units themselves. He sealed up duct work on and near the unit. When he was finished he did another test on air loss. This time i was in the den and I could actually feel the air coming out of the duct. The air flow felt much better.
Dan cleaned up his mess and put his stuff away. We filled out paperwork. There is always paperwork. Once filled out he went on his way. We had a cooler house and were none worse for the wear. Later in the day I was actually getting cold in the house. Our extra room felt much cooler too. This is the room that had the leaky duct. And last night I could actually feel the AC blowing on me. WOW!
And all was FREE! Plus, he didn't leave a mess.
I looked up the company, Two Rivers Energy Services. They are out of Wasilla, Alaska. There website gave a lot of interesting information and explained why the service is FREE! Without going into great detail I will say the utility companies get credits from the government in order to pay this company, Two Rivers Energy Services, for their work. Therefore, it is FREE! That is if you don't consider that the money to cover the credits paid by the government to the utilities has probably already come from you and I.
Bottom line, I was pleasantly surprised and very pleased with the service. If you are interested I would heartily encourage you to check with your utility provider and see if they do this also. Or check out the Two Rivers website or give them a call at 972-358-0465. The only proviso that Dan mentioned to me was that customers on Co-op lines were not eligible. Also customers with window units were not eligible; after all they have no ducts for AC and the window units cause a lot of air loss for the heat during winter.
Tell 'em you want Dan Coker to do the work if he is in your area (Central Texas). © 2008 Barry T Horst
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